Plastic bags will be going up over Lebanon's 20 Flock cameras starting Wednesday.
The city council voted to immediately shut off and cover the company's automated license plate readers Tuesday night, after hours of discussion.
Mayor Mark Messer said he lost confidence in Flock Safety after it failed to respond to a letter with 54 questions about how long data is retained and who can access it.
“Honestly, that’s the only answer I need. You have a client who is concerned about the safety of their data and their citizens, and you refuse to answer the questions posed to you,” Messer said, adding city crews would be dispatched to begin disconnecting the cameras first thing in the morning.
Though Flock Safety acknowledged receiving the letter, Messer said it did not reply within the requested three-week timeframe.
Chief among Messer’s concerns are whether the nationwide searches — a feature that’s always been disabled in Lebanon — can be turned on without the police department knowing, after Mountain View, California, recently found Flock Safety changed the setting.
Messer also questioned the database’s vulnerability to hacking and whether there is an ability to detect if an image has been altered.
In a statement to the Lebanon community ahead of Tuesday night’s meeting, Messer added that the news of Flock Safety offering to sell five years worth of data to the City of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, furthered his concern that the company actually keeps data beyond the agreed-upon 30 days.
“All of those things started to play a larger role in my mind, and I’m thinking, ‘Has our resolution, has our law been broken?’” Messer asked. “All of a sudden, I start to think about the possibility of us not even knowing who has access to our system.”
Flock Safety did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WVXU about why it never responded to Messer’s letter or if it plans to answer his questions.
Messer said Police Chief Jeff Mitchell also contacted the company several times before Tuesday night and did not get a response.
At the meeting, Mitchell stressed the Lebanon Police Department uses the cameras well, saying there is no evidence an officer has ever misused the system — and the city was one of the first to implement a “model” policy with safeguards.
“We audit it to see who's looking, why they're looking. We have to have a case number,” Mitchell said. “We started that from the very beginning. You can't just query the system. You have to have a lawful reason to do so.”
Though city council members who weighed in said they do not dispute the police department’s responsible use — pointing out its high-standards accreditation — they echoed Messer’s concerns about the Flock Safety itself.
“It's not what you guys are doing,” Vice Mayor Scott Norris told Mitchell. “I don't trust the company anymore. I don't trust what they're doing with data. I don't trust it. They've messed up.”
Still, Lebanon is not officially terminating its contract with Flock Safety yet. A motion to do so failed 4-3.
Instead, the council voted to give city officials seven business days to determine if there's a way to exit the contract without paying the company $60,000 for the last year of the agreement.
At the meeting, three community members expressed appreciation for the council’s decision but stressed they do not want the Flock cameras replaced with another similar technology — such as those sold by Axon Enterprise.
“I ask you to please do your homework before replacing Flock. Ask yourself, who has access to this? Where is this data going? Who can share it, and how long is it kept?” resident Lauren Wolf asked. “And most importantly, are we comfortable spending our tax dollars on technology before we have those answers?”
Messer said the council has not discussed alternatives to Flock’s automated license plate readers.
“This whole landscape is gonna be changing as there are more court decisions that come down the pike,” Messer said. “I think we’re gonna maintain a holding pattern.”
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